


Mead with Juniper Berries

by The_Epitome_of_Pretense



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Old Friends, Stormcloaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Epitome_of_Pretense/pseuds/The_Epitome_of_Pretense
Summary: Freyla is a Stormcloak-sympathetic Nord who left her hometown of Helgen behind to pursue training in Alchemy. When she returns home to visit her uncle Vilod, she hopes–perhaps a little too much–that her lifelong friend Ralof is there too. But things are very different from how she remembered.





	Mead with Juniper Berries

**Author's Note:**

> An older work of mine. Enjoy this vintage fluff, courtesy of the Thane of Falkreath.

Freyla did not notice the smoke at first.

She walked along the stone path, turning a deer-antler comb over in her hands. It had a dragon on one side, carved in the bold, rope-like Nordic style. She bought it during her time as an alchemist’s assistance in Windhelm, though it cost her two week’s pay. It was silly. She did not even know if Ralof was back from the war. And even if he was, how could she be sure he was visiting Helgen?

Her stomach twisted. She might well have walked all this way for nothing.

No, not nothing. Her Uncle Vilod was still here.

She crested the hill north of town. That was when she saw it—the forest of black tendrils spiraling up from Helgen’s fortified walls. The sight froze the breath in her lungs. For a moment, all she could do was stare. Then the reality hit her like a splash from a mountain stream.

She bolted for the front gate and found it unlocked. She shoved it open. The thick wooden structure thudded against the stone wall. Then all was quiet in the smoldering town. Even the fires at the base of the black plumes were silenced by an unseen hand. Smoke burned her eyes. The fear in her veins thrummed so low that she barely noticed it. It drove her to run—but something slowed her. Each step fell slow and deliberate, taking her close to her uncle’s inn.

The crash of a collapsing roof to her right made her jump. A spray of sparks leapt into the chill afternoon air. Something lay in the doorway’s remains. She walked closer.

It was a man; he had been pinned under a beam.

She rushed over, digging through her bag with one hand for a healing salve. She stopped short. She did not have to look close to see that the man was dead.

His skin was charred crisp, bloody and cracked. The air stank of burnt fat.

Freyla choked on the smell. Her guts roiled. She bent over her knees and wretched, producing nothing more than a stifled gag. She straightened. She trembled. She wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to look closer. She forced herself to turn away. Her home sat just down the street, she knew. Before she could stop herself, she made her way there.

The roof had caved in, along with one of the outer walls. The thought of finding her uncle like the flayed corpse threatened to make her sick again, but a dark, consuming need to know pushed her through the door. Pieces of the second floor littered the main room. She slid her foot under a plank and leveraged it to lift up the pile. What was left of the central fire pit lay broken amongst the debris, but there were no bodies. She thanked Akatosh for sparing her the sight.

She stood still for a moment, staring at the splintered wood. Uncle Vilod was gone, but only in the sense that he was not there. That was good. But Ralof was gone too, and whether or not he was anywhere, she could not say. He could have been the burned man for all she knew. She pushed the thought from her mind.

She wished she did not care. They had been friends, true, and good ones at that, but there was never anything more. He might have loved her. He never said one way or the other. When she was honest with herself, she was not sure how she felt, either. They could be happy together, probably. If he asked her to marry him, she would likely say yes. It would not be a fiery romance like the ones she read about, but it would be comfortable and secure. Security sounded enticing, especially after the string of murders that prompted her to leave Windhelm.

She realized that she was still staring at the wood planks. She rubbed the smoke from her eyes, embarrassed that she stood in the midst of a ruined town daydreaming about marriage. She dug through the wreckage around her and found the remains of her and her uncle’s wardrobe. She half-hoped that her spring dress would still be inside. She found Uncle Vilod’s kidskin gloves stuck behind a drawer, but nothing else. Her heart began to slow. Assuming no bandits had been by, it meant that her uncle left the place with his things. Either he had enough time before the attack- or whatever caused the carnage- to pack and leave, or he came back after. Whatever the case, he was alive. Now all she had to do was find him.

She looked to the horizon. Where would he have gone? Falkreath and Riverwood were the closest towns, but they were in opposite directions. Her best guess would be just as likely to find him as flipping a coin.

The stillness began to weigh on her. Everything in the town was dead or ruined—except for her. It hit her how alone she was, how lost. She slipped down to the floor. It must have been the Imperials, she thought. Ralof told her how their Thalmor puppet-masters were always dabbling in things that ought to be left alone. They were the only ones with the power to cause this much destruction.

Freyla cursed the Empire under her breath.

She cursed it again, loudly, and pounded her fist against the floorboards. One board popped loose, and the sound of clinking glass split the air. A bottle rolled past her. She picked it up. It was the mead with juniper berries she and Uncle Vilod had brewed last summer.

Something tightened in her throat. It had been Ralof’s favorite. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped the ashes from the bottle and watched the dim outline of the liquid inside jump back and forth. The floor beckoned her to lie down and forget. Its gravity almost overwhelmed her. It took all her strength to stand.

She wavered. She leaned against the doorpost and forced her ragged breathing to calm. Sitting here crying would do nothing, and lying on the floor like a dog would only get her clothes dirty. She had to find Ralof. No, she had to forget about Ralof, just for a little while. She had to find her uncle. She had to walk. To Riverwood. Even if Uncle Vilod wasn’t there, she knew Ralof’s sister Gerdur would be. She could stay with her and sort things out.

A cold breeze swept through the skeletal house. The sun had begun to slip below the treeline. There were still a few hours before sunset, but she had to leave now if she hoped to get to Riverwood before nightfall. She dried her eyes on her dress sleeve and stuffed the bottle in her bag.

The road stretched before her. She closed the gate on her way out and left the crumbling town to rot.

The waning light fell thick through the needles of the great pines that grew around Riverwood. She paused for breath. Her feet ached. Pain lanced up the backs of her heels. One of the guards at the gate noticed her.

“You come from Helgen?” he said.

It took a moment for Freyla to find her voice.

“How could you tell?” she said with something close to a dry chuckle.

“Everyone from Helgen has that look.”

“Has Vilod come through here? He’s my uncle…” she trailed off.

“A lot of people have come through here. I couldn’t say.”

She thanked the guard and shuffled into down. It looked how she remembered, with its wood and stone-mingled buildings and the great cliffs all around. The watermill groaned, pushed by the churning river. One thing was different—tents and lean-tos filled the gaps between every house. People milled about, some with blood-stained bandages about them, tending to the wounded lying on mats on the boardwalks. She scanned the faces for her uncle.

One face stared back at her: a woman with straw-colored hair braided back from her strong, angular face. Hope washed over Freyla on seeing Gerdur. It ebbed when she saw that the woman wore a look of fear and disbelief. She rushed to Freyla.

“By the Nine, you were in Helgen?” Gerdur said. “Ralof told me you’d be in Windhelm—did you see the beast?”

“The what?”

“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have brought it up. Are you all right? Did you get burned?”

“No, I’m fine. Have you seen my uncle?”

Gerdur’s face became unreadable for a moment. Uncle Vilod never hid his feelings about the Stormcloaks. He bore Freyla and Ralof’s friendship quietly enough, though he was eager to help her away from him. How he thought sending her to Windhelm would turn her against the Stormcloaks, she could not guess. Maybe he hoped she would get sick of them.

“He passed through not long ago. He’s on his way to Windhelm to find you,” Gerdur said.

Freyla’s stomach dropped.

“What? No, I—I sent him a letter weeks ago—I told him I was coming home,“ she said.

“I’m sorry. If you take a carriage, perhaps you can overtake him on the road, maybe meet him there.”

Freyla's purse weighed far too lightly on her hip.

“I don’t have the gold for that,” She said, “Is there a courier in town?”

“Yes. He’s been busy with all these refugees sending letters to their families.”

Gerdur led her to the courier, and Freyla paid him a Septim to take word to Windhelm. She hoped her letter wouldn’t get lost in the bag full of papers bound for the other hold capitals. After the mishap with her last letter, she wondered if she could trust the man to deliver her message.

“You’ll stay with us tonight, won’t you?” Gerdur said when Freyla returned.

Freyla wanted to start on her way, but her aching feet and empty belly made a convincing argument to stay. With some reluctance, she admitted to herself that she still longed to find news of Ralof.

“Thanks,” she said. “How’s Hod doing?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Been pretty busy tending to all these poor souls. Lucky for me Ralof’s been here to help with the mill.”

Freyla’s heart skipped a beat.

“Ralof is here?”

She immediately felt stupid for asking.

“Came with one of the refugees after the attack on Helgen,” Gerdur said. “He’s by the river if you want to go talk to him.”

Freyla nodded her thanks and headed for the shore, picking her way through the shelters. He sat on the platform by the mill, staring into the water. He looked like he had seen Oblivion. His hair draped uncombed at the sides of his face, and his eyes were sharp, though they seemed focused on nothing. He did not look up when she sat beside him.

She struggled to think of something to say.

“Nice evening,” She said.

He seemed to jolt from a dream. He stared at her in astonishment for a moment, then the look faded, and he returned his gaze to the river.

“I thought you were in Windhelm,” he said.

“It’s good to see you too.”

“It is good, I just—my thoughts are scattered right now, after all that’s happened.”

“I saw. Gods, were you there?”

“Yes. Almost got beheaded.”

“Damn Imperials.”

There was a pause. Ralof never missed an opportunity to disparage the Empire, yet he was silent. Freyla tapped her thumbs together, wondering if she had said something wrong. She rummaged through her bag and found the bottle of mead. She handed it to Ralof, and he held it for a long while before taking a drink. He stared thoughtfully at the bottle.

“I saw your uncle the other day.” he said.

“How is he?”

“Well enough to spit in my face.”

“I don’t understand; that doesn’t sound like him.”

“He blames the Stormcloaks for what happened. Jarl Ulfric may be strong, but I know he didn’t summon that thing.”

“What thing?”

Ralof shook his head. For a long time he did not speak. Then he sighed.

“I’m so tired,” He said.

“At least whatever happened back there is over.”

“Not just that. I’m tired of everything. This war never should have happened. I’m tired of fighting. I just want to sleep.”

A look of utter grief came over him, and he rested his head in his hands. The look shattered Freyla. He was no longer the man that she knew, the one who told jokes and tugged at her hair when she wasn’t looking. Now he was someone old and weary and ready for quiet, inglorious death.

It tore Freyla apart. She wanted to hold Ralof close and never see him again all at once. She wanted to scream. She wanted to die. She wanted to wake beside him. She dug her nails into her knees and waited for her thoughts to finish battling.

A torchbug glimmered into sight. Soon it would be too dark to see anything but crude shapes. Freyla pulled out the comb and handed it to Ralof.

“I didn’t know you cut your beard short,” She said.

He smiled weakly.

“It’ll grow.” He said, tracing the carvings in the smooth bone.

“There is that.”

His smile grew.

“And in the meanwhile,” he said, sticking the comb in his ratted hair, “I can look like a Dunmer noblewoman.”

They laughed together the way they used to. It bubbled up from the mire of their grief, exploding in a burst of unexpected joy. For the moment, they were back in time, before the war and all its trouble, when she would come to Riverwood to visit in the summer. They were children again, daring each other to steal tomatoes from Hilde’s garden and hiding behind the inn to eat the evidence.

Ralof tried to pull the comb from his tangles, but it caught and held fast.

“Careful, you’ll break the teeth.” Freyla said.

She freed the comb and started working the tangles loose. It was a careful process, and she often had to use her fingers to undo a knot. Crickets began to chirp.

“I’m glad you’re here,” He said.

The words filled her with quiet hope. His eyes locked on hers, and she paused. Before she could say anything, he leaned closer.

His lips were softer than she imagined. It thrilled her, not so much because of the kiss itself, but because he felt the same way as she did. He held her tight in a bear-hug that used to mean something different. She felt crushed to his chest, but it was exactly where she wanted to be. She gripped his shoulders.

Then Ralof drew away from her, so suddenly that she blinked in surprise. Her heart kept dancing, beating hard against her ribs.

“I’m sorry,” He said.

“For what?”

He shrugged and shook his head.

“I am sick. Not in body, but still sick. I don’t know when I’ll be well again. It will be some time before I’m able to think about love or family or things of home.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m saying I can’t offer you anything. Not now.”

A quiver stole into his last word. It sent a shock through her. Freyla laid her hand on his.

“You don’t have to; I can look after myself. But maybe when the war is over…” she trailed off.

He gripped her hand and glanced up at the sky. It had gotten dark, but there were no stars or auroras. A dim orange glow from the south reflected on the underside of the clouds.

“No lights tonight.” Ralof said.

“The clouds are in the way,” Freyla mumbled, “The lights are still there, just hidden.”

She took a swig from the bottle of mead. She handed it back to Ralof, but he only stared at it.

“Things won’t ever be the same,” He said.

“No, but… maybe they will be alright.”

He pulled Freyla close. She leaned on his shoulder.

“Alright sounds good,” He said.

There they stayed, wrapped in each other’s arms, and listened to the turning of the world.


End file.
